NOTES
Dedication and Introduction
1. Alfred de Musset—Translation: “I do not know where my road goes, but I walk better when my hand holds yours.”
2. Chuck Lucier, Rob Schuyt, and Edward Tse, “CEO Succession 2004: The World’s Most Prominent Temp Workers,” Strategy + Business 39, (Booz Allen Hamilton), Summer 2005.
3. Robert Coram, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (New York: Back Bay Books, 2002), 285.
4. From Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, New World Library (Novato CA.) and Namaste Publishing (Vancouver, B.C. Canada), 1999, 163.
5. S. Berman and P. Korsten, “Capitalizing on Complexity, Global Chief Executive Officer Study,” IBM Institute for Business Value (New York: Somers, 2010).
6. Matthew 5:38–40.
7. John R. Boyd, “The Strategic Game of ? and ?,” Unpublished presentation (1987), slide # 23.
8. W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis (MIT Press, 1982), Chapter 11, “Commons Causes and Special Causes.”
9. William Latzko and David Saunders, Four Days with Dr. Deming (New York: Pearson, 1995), Chapter 9, “The Funnel.”
Chapter 1
1. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull, The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong (publisher not identified, 1992).
2. Douglas A. Wiegmann and Scott A. Shappell, “Human Error Analysis of Commercial Aviation Accidents: Application of the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS),” Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 72(11), 2001, 1006–1016.
3. Michael Patrick Lynch, True to Life: Why Truth Matters (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004). Lynch, a professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut and head of the Humanities Institute there, defines intellectual integrity as “recognition of the need to be true to one’s own thinking; to be consistent in the intellectual standards one applies; to hold one’s self to the same rigorous standards of evidence and proof to which one holds one’s antagonists; to practice what one advocates for others; and to honestly admit discrepancies and inconsistencies in one’s own thought and action.”
4. John R. Boyd, “A New Conception of Air-to-Air Combat,” Unpublished presentation (1976), slide #24.
5. Modern advanced autopilots, in combination with flight management computers can do much more than maintaining heading, altitude, and airspeed.
6. Michael E. Porter is the Bishop William Lawrence University professor at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, based at the Harvard Business School. He is a leading authority on competitive strategy and the competitiveness and economic development of nations, states, and regions.
7. Michael E. Porter, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance (New York: Free Press, 1985), 11–15.
8. ITIL, acronym for Information Technology Infrastructure Library, is a set of practices for IT service management that focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of business.
9. William J. Latzko and David M. Saunders. Four Days with Dr. Deming: A Strategy for Modern Methods of Management, (MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996), 96.
10. Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich (Hollywood: Wilshire Book Company, 1999), 105.
11. Michael E. Porter, Jay W. Lorsch, and Nitin Nohria, “Seven surprises for new CEOs,” Harvard Business Review 82(10), 2004, 62–75.
12. In complex aircraft, Fly-by-Wire, and Flight Management Computers, this connection is maintained through computers and electric servo engines, which makes the connection indirect.
13. S. Berman and P. Korsten, “Capitalizing on Complexity, Global Chief Executive Officer Study,” IBM Institute for Business Value (New York: Somers, 2010).
14. Tom Baker and Sean J. Griffith, “Predicting Corporate Governance Risk: Evidence from the Directors’ and Officers’ Liability Insurance Market,” Chicago Law Review 74 (2007): 487.
15. John R. Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict,” Unpublished Paper (1986), slide #143.
16. Ibid., slide #144.
Chapter 2
1. Wikipedia, Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the “moral” and political aspects of war.
2. US Marine Corps, “MCDP 1: Warfighting” Washington, DC: United States Marine Corps, (1997).
3. See also Sir Karl Popper on falsification/problem of induction. It is impossible, Popper argues, to ensure a theory to be true; it is more important that its falsity can be detected as easily as possible. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper#Falsification.2Fproblem_of_induction.
4. Marianne Deborah Williamson (born July 8, 1952) is an American spiritual teacher, author, and lecturer. She has published 10 books, including four New York Times number one bestsellers.
5. Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), 52–53.
6. The few is likely a reference to Sir Winston Churchill’s famous wartime speech at the conclusion of The Battle of Britain: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
7. Wallace D. Wattles, “How Riches Come to You,” in The Science of Getting Rich (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 2007), 24.
8. Sun Tzu, “Form,” in The Art of War: Translation, Essays, and Commentary by The Denma Translation Group (Boston and London: Shambhala, 2001).
9. Gossen’s first law of diminishing marginal utility: A law of economics relevant to decision making stating that as a person increases consumption of a product—while keeping consumption of other products constant—there is a decline in the marginal utility that person derives from consuming each additional unit of that product.
Chapter 3
1. James Gimian and Barry Boyce, “The Basic Practice,” in The Rules of Victory, 116.
2. Lisanne Bainbridge, “Ironies of automation,” Automatica 19(6), 1983, 775–779.
3. I use the term machine in order to be in alignment with the concept of a human–machine interface, even though I describe the value chain as an organism rather than a mechanism.
4. John P. Briggs and David F. Peat, “Entropy and the Paradox of Life,” in Looking Glass Universe, 160.
5. An excellent example of converting nonproductive human energy back into productive energy can be found in the must-read book The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack, founder and CEO of SRC Holdings at Springfield, MO.
6. S. Berman and P. Korsten, “Capitalizing on Complexity, Global Chief Executive Officer Study,” IBM Institute for Business Value (New York: Somers, 2010).
7. Chuck Spinney, “Iraq Invasion Anniversary: Inside the Decider’s Head,” March 22, 2013, http://chuckspinney.blogspot.com/search?q=incestuous.
8. Erich Jantsch, quoted in Briggs, Looking Glass Universe, 181.
9. Dr. Russell Lincoln Ackoff was an American organizational theorist, consultant, and Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
10. Joseph, Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Novato: New World Library, 2008).
Chapter 4
1. Ken Olson, President of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977.
2. Merriam-Webster Online defines a syllogism as “a deductive scheme of a formal argument consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion.”
3. Ceteris paribus: “all other things being equal.”
4. Thomas Paine, in The American Crisis.
5. Aristotle.
6. Sir Karl Popper (1902–1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher who is generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the twentieth century. His views on the scientific method favored empirical falsification: a theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can and should be scrutinized by decisive experiments. If the outcome of an experiment contradicts the theory, one should refrain from ad hoc maneuvers that evade the contradiction merely by making it less falsifiable.
7. Oscar Wilde.
8. From Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces Copyright © Joseph Campbell Foundation (jcf.org) 2008. P 48. Used with permission.
9. From Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces Copyright © Joseph Campbell Foundation (jcf.org) 2008. P 49. Used with permission.
10. Bhagavad Gītā, 2:22–24.
11. From Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Freudvoll und leidvoll:
Freudvoll
Und leidvoll,
Gedankenvoll sein,
Langen
Und bangen
In schwebender Pein,
Himmelhoch jauchzend,
Zum Tode betrübt;
Glücklich allein
Ist die Seele, die liebt.
12. http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/Zen_Humor.html.
13. From Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces Copyright © Joseph Campbell Foundation (jcf.org) 2008. P. 163. Used with permission.
14. From Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces Copyright © Joseph Campbell Foundation (jcf.org) 2008. P 188. Used with permission.
15. Miguel de Cervantes. “I never thrust my nose into other men’s porridge. It is no bread and butter of mine; every man for himself, and God for us all.”
16. From Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Copyright © Joseph Campbell Foundation (jcf.org) 2008. P. 188. Used with permission.
17. From Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces Copyright © Joseph Campbell Foundation (jcf.org) 2008. P 94-95. Used with permission.
18. From Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces Copyright © Joseph Campbell Foundation (jcf.org) 2008. P 115-116. Used with permission.
19. Prof. Barry Schwartz is an American psychologist and the Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College.
20. Russell L. Ackoff, “On Learning and Systems That Facilitate It,” The Center for Quality of Management Journal 5(2), Fall 1996, https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.203.758&rep=rep1&type=pdf.
21. John Boyd would have described such a person as someone who knows more and more about less and less until she or he knows everything about nothing.
22. Ernst F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful, 33.
23. Russell L. Ackoff, “On Learning and Systems That Facilitate It.”
24. From Joseph Campbell’s The Masks of God: Creative Mythology © 1991, Digital Edition, Copyright © 2016 © Joseph Campbell Foundation (jcf.org). Used with permission.
25. William McDonough, “A Centennial Sermon,” Perspecta 29 (1998), 78–85.
26. From Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces Copyright © Joseph Campbell Foundation (jcf.org) 2008. P. 196. Used with permission.
27. In psychology, this form of mental stress is referred to as cognitive dissonance.
Chapter 5
1. Philip Kotler is a Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
2. Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack.
3. “Machines don’t fight wars; people do, and they use their minds.”
4. Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos, 2nd Ed., by Donald J. Wheeler, PhD, © 2000 by SPC Press, Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.A. All Rights Reserved, 140.
5. Watch award-winning filmmaker Christopher Nupen’s capture of the spirit of one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century in his classic documentary, Jacqueline du Pré and the Elgar Cello Concerto.
6. Alan Axelrod, Patton’s Drive: The Making of America’s Greatest General. Globe Pequot, 2010, 34/5.
7. Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth (1988). The PBS documentary was originally broadcast as six one-hour conversations between mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) and journalist Bill Moyers.
8. Colin Macmillan Turnbull was a British-American anthropologist who came to public attention with the popular books The Forest People and The Mountain People, and one of the first anthropologists to work in the field of ethnomusicology.
9. Physicist James Clerk Maxwell defined a governor as a part of a machine by means of which the velocity of the machine is kept nearly uniform, notwithstanding variations in the driving power or the resistance.
10. Marshall Goldsmith, PhD, “How We Opened the World’s Eyes to Coaching,” (http://www.marshallgoldsmith.com/articles/how-we-opened-the-worlds-eyes-to-coaching/?utm_source=05+-+SCC+Coaching+Is+for+Winners&utm_campaign=01+-+SCC+How+It+Started&utm_medium=email): “Yesterday’s management approach was becoming less and less relevant as we struggled to find a better way. We wholeheartedly believed and still do that way was through coaching. Back then, coaching was considered a sign that the person being coached had a ‘problem’. That they had issues. Today, having a coach is a positive, prestigious thing. Today, you’re a winner if you have a coach. You are someone the company is investing in because the leadership believes you are and can be an even greater leader.”
Chapter 6
1. Napoleon Hill, Chapter II: “Desire,” in Think and Grow Rich.
2. Ibid., 42.
3. Wallace D. Wattles, Chapter 6: “How Riches Come to You” in The Science of Getting Rich, 24.
4. Professor Philip Kotler.
5. US Marine Corps, “MCDP 1: Warfighting.”
6. Black Friday: (in the US) the day after Thanksgiving, noted as the first day of traditional Christmas shopping, during high crowds of consumers are drawn to special offers by retailers.
7. George Stalk, Jr., “Time: The Next Source of Competitive Advantage,” Harvard Business Review, July 1988.
Chapter 7
1. Rafael Aguayo, From Dr. Deming: The American Who Taught the Japanese about Quality.
2. Peter L. Jakab, The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 83.
3. Ibid.
4. Watts S. Humphrey (1989). Managing the Software Process, Addison-Wesley Professional.
5. From “The Girl in the Golden Atom” by Ray Cummings, All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1919, 205. Attributions to Albert Einstein and Mark Twain are unsupported.
6. John R. Boyd, “Organic Design for Command and Control,” A discourse on winning and losing (1987), slide 8.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., slide #4.
9. Ibid.
10. John R. Boyd, “Organic Design for Command and Control,” A discourse on winning and losing (1987), slide 11.
11. Timothy Fuller (1778–1835) was a US Representative from Massachusetts. He was the great-grandfather of inventor and thinker R. Buckminster Fuller.
12. Volatility is the rate at which the numeric value of a measurement increases or decreases over a given period of time. If this numeric value fluctuates rapidly in a short time span, it is termed to have high volatility. If this numeric value fluctuates slowly in a longer time span, it is termed to have low volatility.
13. Common-cause variation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cause_and_special_cause_(statistics).
14. Examples of common-cause variation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cause_and_special_cause_(statistics).
15. Characteristics of special-cause variation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cause_and_special_cause_(statistics).
16. Examples of special-cause variation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cause_and_special_cause_(statistics).
17. The difference between capacity and capability can be likened to a set of golf clubs and an individual player’s skill set. Each club is specifically designed with the capacity in terms of distance and arc of the trajectory to facilitate a particular stroke, while the successful delivery of that stroke—with as little variation between strokes, under all conditions of terrain and weather—depends on the capability of each individual player. Therefore, a better set of golf clubs (rated on their specific capacity) does not improve any player’s skill (= capability). Only a skillful player is capable of harnessing the benefits of clubs with a higher capacity for accuracy and distance.
18. https://deming.org/management-system/funnel-experiment.
19. Lisanne Bainbridge, “Ironies of Automation,” Automatica 19(6), 1983, 775–779.
20. James T. Reason, PhD, is a British psychologist, author of the book Human Error. His principal research area has been human error and the way people and organizational processes contribute to the breakdown of complex, well-defended technologies such as commercial aviation, nuclear power generation, process plants, railways, marine operations, financial services, and healthcare institutions. His error classification and models of system breakdown are widely used in these domains, particularly by accident investigators.
21. Tom Baker and Sean J. Griffith, “Predicting Corporate Governance Risk,” 487.
22. http://www.southamconsulting.net/resources/HogHandbook.pdf.
23. James Reason, Human Error (Cambridge University Press, 1990), 118.
24. John D. Lee, “Review of a Pivotal Human Factors Article: ‘Humans and Automation: Use, Misuse, Disuse, Abuse.’ ” Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 50(3), 2008, 404–410.
25. Thomas B. Sheridan and Raja Parasuraman, “Human-Automation Interaction,” Reviews of Human Factors and Ergonomics 1(1), 2005, 89–129.
26. Raja Parasuraman and Thomas Riley, “Humans and Automation: Use, Misuse, Disuse, Abuse,” Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 39(2), June 1997, 233.
28. See Rasmussen, Pedersen, and Goodstein, 1995.
Chapter 8
1. Waste can be defined as cost that is incurred but failed to create use value for a target audience.
2. Milton Friedman, leader of the Chicago school of economics, and winner of Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976, had an article published in the New York Times on September 13, 1970, in which he promoted the idea that the sole purpose of a firm is to make money for its shareholders.
3. The name Mephistopheles is associated with the Faust legend of an ambitious scholar, based on the historical Johann Georg Faust. In the legend, Faust makes a deal with the Devil at the price of his soul, Mephistopheles acting as the Devil’s agent.
4. John R. Boyd, “The Strategic Game of ? and ?,” Unpublished presentation (1987), slide # 58.
5. Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich, 42.
6. British psychologist James Reason—author of a seminal study of human error—concluded, “Although we cannot change the human condition [human fallibility] we can change the conditions under which humans work.”
7. This passage is widely attributed to Abraham Lincoln, but according to the discussion in QuoteInvestigator.com, it was first said in 1684 in a popular work of apologetics titled “Traité de la Vérité de la Religion Chrétienne” by Jacques Abbadie, who was a French Protestant based in Germany, England, and Ireland. He said, “. . . ont pû tromper quelques hommes, ou les tromper tous dans certains lieux & en certains tems, mais non pas tous les hommes, dans tous les lieux & dans tous les siécles.” This also appeared without attribution in September 9, 1885, in The Syracuse Daily Standard (Syracuse, New York), “Prohibitionists in Arms: The Third Party Declare War to the Knife on Democrats and Republicans,” page 4, column 4.
8. Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Chapter 19.
9. Ibid.
10. Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Chapter 20.
Chapter 9
1. Clotaire Rapaille, a French marketing consultant and the CEO and founder of Archetype Discoveries Worldwide, has published 17 books with topics ranging from psychology, marketing, sociology, and cultural anthropology.
2. Peter L. Jakab, The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright, (Smithsonian Institution, 2016), 17.
3. Ibid., 136.
4. Physicist James Clerk Maxwell defined a governor as a part of a machine by means of which the velocity of the machine is kept nearly uniform, notwithstanding variations in the driving power or the resistance.
5. James Reason, Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents, (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 1997), 71.
6. Ibid., 70.
7. This confirms the importance of business governance in determining business performance. How we develop the value chain’s capability and capacity of realizing its mission depends on an executive’s ability to apply the missing link in the value chain.
8. James Reason, Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents, (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 1997), 10.
9. W.A. Wagenaar and J. Groeneweg, “Accidents at Sea,” 587–598.
10. Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Chapter 6.
11. Synthesis either resolves the conflict between thesis and antithesis or forms the final stage in the development of a new theory or system or the adjustment of existing ones.
12. From Wikipedia: The human condition is defined as “The characteristics, key events, and situations, which compose the essentials of human existence, such as birth, growth, emotionality, aspiration, conflict, and mortality.” This is a very broad topic, which has been and continues to be pondered and analyzed from many perspectives, including those of religion, philosophy, history, art, literature, sociology, psychology, and biology. As a literary term, “the human condition” is typically used in the context of ambiguous subjects such as the meaning of life or moral concerns.
13. That is, the biblical “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matt. 7:12).
14. From Wikipedia: Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. His bestselling book Man’s Search for Meaning chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate, which led him to discover the importance of finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most brutal ones, and thus a reason to continue living.
15. Thornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist.
16. John R. Boyd and Ginger Gholston Richards, Patterns of Conflict, edited by Chester W. Richards and Franklin C. Spinney (Defense and the National Interest, 2007), slide #149.
17. Chuck Spinney, The M & M Strategy.
18. John R. Boyd, “The Strategic Game of ? and ?,” Unpublished presentation (1987), slide #35.
19. Ibid., slide #49.
20. Ibid., slide #44.
21. People on the other side of the argument such as employees, trade unions, vendors, suppliers, clients, authorities, etc. Ibid.
22. John R. Boyd, “The Strategic Game of ? and ?,” Unpublished presentation (1987), slide #59.
23. From: A Guide to Writing an Executive Development Plan.
24. Peter L. Jakab, The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 153.
25. Matthew 7:12; see also Luke 6:31.
26. Robert Coram, Chapter 28 in Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (Little, Brown, 2002), 380.
27. Ibid., Chapter 13, 194.
Chapter 10
1. W. Edwards Deming, The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education, 103.
2. John R. Boyd and Ginger Gholston Richards, Patterns of Conflict, edited by Chester W. Richards and and Franklin C. Spinney (Defense and the National Interest, 2007), slide #139.
3. Ibid., slide #141.
4. Ibid., slide #144.
5. This is particularly true for countries where unionization is low and labor laws are rather lax, such as the United States of America.
6. See Chapter 9, “ ‘Motherhood’ Position.”
7. John R. Boyd, “Organic Design for Command and Control,” A discourse on winning and losing (1987), slide #37.
8. S. Berman and P. Korsten, “Capitalizing on Complexity, Global Chief Executive Officer Study,” IBM Institute for Business Value, (Somers, New York, 2010).
9. See Chapter 9, Figure 9.14, under the section “Basic Stick-and-Rudder Skills.”
10. From Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces Copyright © Joseph Campbell Foundation (jcf.org) 2008. P. 18. Used with permission.